About the Book
Balrog Award 1982.
DARK AGE DESCENDING
Camber of Culdi, most powerful of the, magical Deryni race, was
worried. Twelye years before, he had "died" and assumed the form of
Bishop Allister Cullen, in order to guide .the human king Cinhil and
ensure peace between Deryni and humans in Gwynedd. In most ways, he and
the Camberian Council he headed had been successful.
But now Cinhil was dying, leaving the kingdom to his sickly young son
Alroy, in whose name a council of regents would govern. And Camber knew
those regents to be evil men, greedy for power and filled with hatred
for all Deryni. Once they ruled, no Deryni would be safe. Already the
persecutions were beginning, with terror, rapine and genocide soon to
follow. Even the Church could offer no sure refuge.
The only hope of Camber and the Council lay in a discovery by the
Healer Rhys, who had learned--without understanding – to block off all
Deryni talents. So blocked, some few Deryni might go underground,
undetectable as other than merely human.
But that meant that the race of Deryni could be saved only by being destroyed as Deryni!
